Happy days?

When time is ripe, it moves quickly. Only 10 years after the notorious “Stamp Act” had thrown the colonies into an uproar and brought out some of the Americans’ worst character traits, war began. After a year of shooting, shouting, desperate diplomacy, and furious debate, the colonists declared independence on July 2, 1776.

What then?

Revolutions are easy; nation-building is hard. But never before, and never since, have time and circumstance collided so providentially to meet that challenge. For two generations Christian, Enlightenment, and pre-Romantic thinkers had been debating what the ideal state would look like. If any man had read them all, and formed decided opinions of all, it was John Adams.

He was already a man of influence, having served in both Continental Congresses (1774 and 1775), helped draft the Declaration of Independence, and nominated George Washington as commander in chief of the ragtag army. Unlike his cousin Sam, he’d come relatively late to the conviction that the United States ought to be free and independent, but once converted, he brought valuable erudition to the cause. Short, round, and self-assured, Adams floated in his element, theorizing endlessly on matters of state.

Adams’ frame of reference was Christian overall—especially with his wary eye toward human nature and its tendency to excess.

He wasn’t the only one. While Washington played cat and mouse with British troops in New York, the former colonies began writing their state constitutions. Their optimism seems astonishing today: With only a tattered band of volunteers between themselves and the world’s best-equipped fighting force, they were debating how to govern themselves once the redcoats left. In 1776, knowing John Adams’ expertise, delegates from North Carolina and Pennsylvania asked him for advice. He was happy to oblige with Thoughts on Government, later revised and widely published.

“[T]he divine science of politics is the science of social happiness,” Adams began, and “the happiness of the individual is the end of man.” Happiness he defined as “ease, comfort, security,” adding the time-honored, classical condition that “the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.”

Adams went on to claim that the best form of government is republican, summed up by one of his favorite quotes: “an empire of laws, and not of men.” Making law should be the work of representatives elected by the people, but so much responsibility would be dangerous. A smaller, more exclusive body should be chosen by the representatives to act as a brake on their passions and a liaison between the executive and the legislative body. The judiciary should be separate and unbiased.

Elections should be held once a year, in order to hold representatives to account and teach them “the great political virtues of humility, patience and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.” Thrift should be encouraged as “a great revenue, besides curing us of vanities, levities, and fopperies.”

Adams made no mention of God and referred to specifically Christian faith only once, but his frame of reference was Christian overall—especially with his wary eye toward human nature and its tendency to excess. The goal was human happiness; the means were balance, prudence, and moderation. Thoughts on Government strongly influenced the state constitutional committees, and in spirit if not in detail its recommendations found their way into the U.S. Constitution.

But even then, the times were quickly overtaking Adams’ carefully measured recipe for good government. Only 50 years later, boisterous supporters of Andrew Jackson would be trashing the White House as they immoderately celebrated the inauguration of an outsider and enemy of the establishment. Adams almost lived to see it; as an old man he sometimes despaired of his countrymen’s excess enthusiasm and impatience.

And today, 240 years later? Most Americans agree with his definition of happiness as “ease, comfort, and security,” but don’t seem especially happy. Adams would say it’s because they have forgotten virtue, but that’s not necessarily the case. The average American considers himself virtuous (he’s just not sure about his neighbor). Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a political philosopher from another revolution, would put it differently: It’s because they have forgotten God.

Email jcheaney@wng.org